"Why," McCoy asked when Jim came by his quarters an hour after the end of beta shift, "Have Uhura and Sulu been giving me sympathetic looks all day?" Actually, they'd been verging on pitying, especially Sulu's, but saying that to Jim was just asking for the conversation to go off in any number of irrelevant directions.

Jim toed his boots off just inside the door, like always, and flopped down on his stomach on the bed, pressed against McCoy, who was leaning against the headboard while he read through the latest collection of Starfleet medical memos. "I slept with Gaila again last night," Jim said, mostly into the pillows.

"And I ask again – why are they giving *me* sympathetic looks?" McCoy poked Jim's side when he didn't say anything. "I could ask them."

"Yeah, but if you wanted to, you would have," Jim pointed out.

McCoy couldn't really argue with that one, unfortunately. Not that he didn't get along fine with both of them, but the sympathetic looks had been weird enough. The thought of the conversation that might follow was vaguely terrifying. "So?"

"They might have seen me leaving her room," Jim added, still talking into the pillow.

McCoy reminded himself firmly that he had patience enough to outwait Jim Kirk any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Also that someone had to be the mature one between them in any given situation, and there wasn't a great chance of it being Jim. "Fine. You're indiscreetly sleeping with the crew," he said. "Sympathy for Gaila I'd understand. Sympathy for me over your sexual exploits, I really don't."

"Yeah," McCoy said, since he really couldn't argue. Jim had the whole damn crew wrapped around his little finger. "How do you sleeping with Gaila, the crew knowing we're together, and Sulu and Uhura turning on the big, sympathetic eyes go together?" Jim looked away for a moment and McCoy couldn't contain his victorious grin at having not only noticed the tangent happening but gotten them back on the actual path. "I know you too well to be distracted that easily."

"I know," Jim grumbled. "They probably think I'm sleeping around behind your back, and they feel sorry for you because I'm about to break your heart." He sounded bitter but resigned as he said it, enough for McCoy to want to say something reassuring about how he was sure that wasn't what they thought, even though it probably was.

"Maybe they feel sorry for me because they're assuming we've broken up and I'm sobbing into my whisky while you move on with Gaila," he offered.

Predictably, Jim brightened at that. "Because who wouldn't be heart-broken at the prospect of no longer having me around?"

"Plenty of people seem to have coped just fine," McCoy pointed out dryly. Jim rolled his eyes, but some of the bitterness still lingered on his face, which meant McCoy would be throwing himself in between Jim and harm, again. "If it bothers you, I can explain this to them."

He gestured vaguely between the two of them, and Jim caught his hand, kissed his knuckles. "You wouldn't feel weird? You know, having people know something about us that's private?"

McCoy shrugged. "You like sex, I'm not bothered about it, so we came to an agreement that works for us to be together. It's not like I'm offering to give them details of what we do together or how many times we have slept together."

Jim rubbed his cheek against the back of McCoy's hand, like a cat, and didn't say anything, his eyes cast down.

"If it means I don't have to spend another day waiting for someone to offer me tea and cookies and a shoulder to cry on…" McCoy said. "Anyway, it's not like either of them will ask a lot of intrusive questions."

"Sulu might," Jim said. "He likes to know things."

"I control the schedule for physical exams," McCoy said. "I can deter him."

Jim laughed a little then and looked up, his eyes clear. "It's up to you. It doesn't really matter what they think about my sex life."

McCoy knew that was a lie. Jim cared what the crew thought about everything he did, from what he ate for breakfast right up to his biggest command decisions. "I'll tell 'em," he said. "Save me from the big, sad eyes."

"If you're sure," Jim said.

McCoy leaned down and kissed him, awkward at that angle. "I'm sure," he said, shifting so they were lying next to each other.

Jim reached out, cupped his cheek and stroked one thumb across his cheekbone, then kissed him, warm and soft. "This okay?" he asked.

The kissing trailed off after a while, until they were just lying curled together in the dim light, Jim's head on McCoy's shoulder. He knew they'd have to get up eventually, have dinner and probably get some more work done, since Starfleet loved paperwork to a frankly disturbing degree, but for now, he could just enjoy this, being warm and close to the person he loved.